


Gallifreyan

by Queertrees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gallifrey, Gallifreyan, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queertrees/pseuds/Queertrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor always speaks Gallifreyan and lets the TARDIS translate for him. He forgot to mention this to Rose Tyler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gallifreyan

It was just another one of those multitudes of things that he didn’t even realize that he hadn’t explained. He should have thought of it on that first date, when Rose yelled at him for not telling her that the TARDIS would get inside her mind and translate for her. He should have mentioned it later, after they watched the world burn, after he took her hand. While they were at the chippy, he could’ve mentioned it there.  


“So like I was saying, the translation circuits. It’s workin’ right now, with me.”  


“But you’re speakin’ English,” she’d have said, “Aren’t you?”  


“Nope. Only sounds that way. I _can_ speak Earth languages, though, if I wanted. I can speak billions of languages.”  


“Billions? You’re havin’ me on. If you’re not English then what are you speakin?”  


She would’ve understood. He’d just told her he was the only one left. That they were all gone. She would have understood why he spoke the language of his home planet. All the sights and towers and people of Gallifrey were gone, but he could still hear it, feel it in the way his mouth and tongue shaped words in the language spoken so long ago. So many words had been said in that language. His mother, chiding him and his brothers in that soft way she had. His teachers, telling him about the responsibility of the Time Lords and the power they must not abuse. His friends, imagining all the places they would go see, once they’d passed their TARDIS piloting exams.  


The words of war. The screams.  


It was all he could do. He’d killed them all; the least he could do was keep that one small thing about them alive.  


That was why he always spoke Gallifreyan. He even forgot he was doing it, sometimes, since everyone understood him. He’d remember when he had to choose his words carefully, because there wasn’t a possible translation for some words. In those moments, he’d say “ _Well_ ….” and pause, and Rose would look at him, waiting for him to say something so clever and impressive, and he’d wish that it was possible to translate the words that could tell her how _much_ she was, how she was everything. Earth words seemed too tiny to do her justice.  


But he remembered when he found the sun, burning up in a deserted system near one last tiny crack in the universe. It would be enough power to hold the crack open. Not for long. He knew he should choose his words carefully, but no words in any language seemed enough. He stared into the sun, and as he put into motion the calculations that would make it burn harder, flare and then fade, he thought of the teenage Earth girl he’d taken along for a ride, staring at the last moments of her home planet, so long ago on that first day.  


He whispered her name. He called out to her and knew she would come find him.  


Of course she found him. She could tell as soon as she saw his face that he had not come to take her away again. And she couldn’t even touch him. Wind whipped her hair and she pushed her words through her tears. She stood strong and brave and oh, so fantastically human. He wished he could tell her how she was the mightiest thing in the universe.  


No words were grand enough, he knew that. And he saw that this little Level 5 planet with its tiny words had made this woman. It had created her and formed her. She had spoken for it in the language of her people.  


He wished there was some way to bring them closer, and that’s when he thought of it. No translation circuits in the way. No imprecise interpretations. Words from his hearts, in the language of his pink-and-yellow human. If it was his last chance to say it, he would say it in her language.  


_“Rose Tyler…”_


End file.
